Analyst: ‘Black Ops Won’t Better Modern Warfare 2’

Viewed by many as the important release of the year, Call of Duty: Blacks Ops may have its sights set on global domination but analyst Michael Pachter believes the title will not better Modern Warfare 2.
“I don’t think that Black Ops will be the best selling Call of Duty game,” Pachter told Industry Gamers. “I think that Black Ops has a lot of good things going for it, and a few challenges.
“The good things are that it’s a clearly beautiful game, the setting is fresh, and the developer has gotten better review scores on each iteration. The challenge is that Treyarch is called the ‘other’ Call of Duty developer for a reason; the top review scores for the franchise on gamerankings.com are held by Infinity Ward games.
“I don’t know whether the gaming press will suddenly become more charitable than they have in the past, but my read on them as a group is that they are a hypercritical and bitter lot, and I think that they have the potential to find many things wrong with Black Ops, chief among them that the game is not Modern Warfare 2.”
The Wedbush Morgan analyst says the fact that there’s so much competition around this year will also hamper the success of Black Ops.
“Competition is quite fierce this holiday, with competitive games like Halo Reach, Medal of Honor and Vanquish all in the marketplace, and anyone who buys one of those games will have $60 less to spend on other shooter games,” he added.
“Thus, I must conclude that Black Ops won’t sell as well as Modern Warfare 2, but I do think that the Call of Duty franchise will continue to sell very well.”
Pachter has previously expressed concern that Black Ops may not succeed due to the ‘harsh’ gaming press.